LargeCanine:This became Obama's economy the moment he signed the first Stimulus bill promising that unemployment, then at less than 7%, would not go above 8%.

You're partially right. Many of us argued that Mr. Obama's stimulus was woefully misguided.

The president implemented enormous tax cuts that did NOTHING to improve the economy.

What he should have done (and what credible economists argued at the time) was increase spending in order to stimulate demand. But, for some reason, the president stupidly accept the GOP argument that tax cuts spur growth during times of excess supply. And, those arguments were accepted without any empirical evidence to support them.

eraser8:LargeCanine: This became Obama's economy the moment he signed the first Stimulus bill promising that unemployment, then at less than 7%, would not go above 8%.

You're partially right. Many of us argued that Mr. Obama's stimulus was woefully misguided.

The president implemented enormous tax cuts that did NOTHING to improve the economy.

What he should have done (and what credible economists argued at the time) was increase spending in order to stimulate demand. But, for some reason, the president stupidly accept the GOP argument that tax cuts spur growth during times of excess supply. And, those arguments were accepted without any empirical evidence to support them.

muck4doo:CanisNoir: NewportBarGuy: I mean you are calling me a Nazi, right? Don't beat around the bush, son. Use your words.

Yea, but you're more this kind of Nazi, if you ask me.

[www.deviantart.com image 700x560]

In the meantime, Obama is in his second term now, Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, I think it's about time that they took some responsibility for the shiatty state of the Economy. Despite their promises it hasn't gotten better, and Pelosi stating that ending Subsidies on Oil isn't going to effect the "little people" is just crap.

Granny_Panties: No shiat Sherlock. Reading comprehension must not be one of your many talents.

Apparently. I blew apart your retarded talking point that the Dems weren't really in charge.

There you go again. I never said they weren't in charge. It was never even implied. So a 2 member majority can take the entire country into depression in less than 2 years. WOW! That's a system! Bush could have stopped anything they did with a simple veto. Do you know who was in charge in 2007? Bush was, not the Senate. Can you please tell me exactly what bills the Democrats passed in 2007 and 2008 that sunk the economy? You won't. Republicans can't answer that.

Granny_Panties: No shiat Sherlock. Reading comprehension must not be one of your many talents.

Apparently. I blew apart your retarded talking point that the Dems weren't really in charge.

There you go again. I never said they weren't in charge. It was never even implied. So a 2 member majority can take the entire country into depression in less than 2 years. WOW! That's a system! Bush could have stopped anything they did with a simple veto. Do you know who was in charge in 2007? Bush was, not the Senate. Can you please tell me exactly what bills the Democrats passed in 2007 and 2008 that sunk the economy? You won't. Republicans can't answer that.

Everyone knows that Bush was forced to sign off on these bills from the Dem-led House and Senate even though deep down in his heart, he really didn't want to.

Granny_Panties: No shiat Sherlock. Reading comprehension must not be one of your many talents.

Apparently. I blew apart your retarded talking point that the Dems weren't really in charge.

There you go again. I never said they weren't in charge. It was never even implied. So a 2 member majority can take the entire country into depression in less than 2 years. WOW! That's a system! Bush could have stopped anything they did with a simple veto. Do you know who was in charge in 2007? Bush was, not the Senate. Can you please tell me exactly what bills the Democrats passed in 2007 and 2008 that sunk the economy? You won't. Republicans can't answer that.

Everyone knows that Bush was forced to sign off on these bills from the Dem-led House and Senate even though deep down in his heart, he really didn't want to.

Obama personally held a gun to his head to force him to sign the bill.

Their report projected that the economic stimulus plan would create 3 to 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. It also included a chart predicting unemployment rates with and without the stimulus. Without the stimulus (the baseline), unemployment was projected to hit about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009.

The important word here is projection. The economic analysis wasn't a promise, it was an educated assessment of how events might unfold. And it came with heavy disclaimers.

"It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error," the report states. "There is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity."

There's also a footnote that goes along with the chart stating: "Forecasts of the unemployment rate without the recovery plan vary substantially. Some private forecasters anticipate unemployment rates as high as 11% in the absence of action."

"Obama didn't lie. His economic team actually promised it and they were just wrong. Derp."

Gotcha.

Now look, I'm willing to not trust any projection Obama's team makes and discount it outright. Are you?

cameroncrazy1984:That's the report from Jan 9, 2009, proposing a much larger stimulus plan.

Try a third time? Maybe that one will make it true.

Define "much larger".

To me and most grade school graduates- 787,000,000,000 is about the same as 787,000,000,000. And they're both less than the 831,000,000,000 actually passed. All those numbers are higher than the 775,000,000,000 the report used as a baseline though.

To me and most grade school graduates- 787,000,000,000 is about the same as 787,000,000,000. And they're both less than the 831,000,000,000 actually passed. All those numbers are higher than the 775,000,000,000 the report used as a baseline though.

Actually, it says "over" $775 million, and does not give a specific number.

A bit like how Bush was somehow responsible for the tech bubble burst right at the end of the Clinton administration which was the primary force behind many job losses during his first term, but that didn't stop liberals from running ads blaming him for it in 2004 now did it?

At what point precisely is Obama responsible for anything negative? As it stands right now he is somehow simultaneously responsible for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. He's like the Schrodinger's cat of presidents. The only other people who behave like this are religious fundamentalists trying to simultaneously tell you what a great guy their god is while at the same time explaining away all the bad things that happen as either not his fault or your own fault.

Mrbogey:A bit like how Bush was somehow responsible for the tech bubble burst right at the end of the Clinton administration which was the primary force behind many job losses during his first term, but that didn't stop liberals from running ads blaming him for it in 2004 now did it?

At what point precisely is Obama responsible for anything negative? As it stands right now he is somehow simultaneously responsible for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. He's like the Schrodinger's cat of presidents. The only other people who behave like this are religious fundamentalists trying to simultaneously tell you what a great guy their god is while at the same time explaining away all the bad things that happen as either not his fault or your own fault.

Mrbogey:"Obama didn't lie. His economic team actually promised it and they were just wrong. Derp."

Let me repeat this one more time so we can all understand this (from Politifact):

The important word here is projection. The economic analysis wasn't a promise, it was an educated assessment of how events might unfold. And it came with heavy disclaimers.

"It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error," the report states. "There is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity."

Can we finally drop this stupid "Obama promised" BS when he did nothing of the sort?

LargeCanine:And has been for 4 years. Obama took a recession and made it worse.

You do know that the recession officially ended in the 2nd quarter of 2009, right?

Actually, let's back up: you are aware that a recession is an actual, specific event with a real definition (2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth), and not just a word for a lot of eceonomic bad news, right?

You can argue that we're growing slowly, but we're clearly and objectively not in recession. Obama in inherited a recession, and ended it almost immediately. That's reality, you can't argue with that.

randomjsa:A bit like how Bush was somehow responsible for the tech bubble burst right at the end of the Clinton administration which was the primary force behind many job losses during his first term, but that didn't stop liberals from running ads blaming him for it in 2004 now did it?

At what point precisely is Obama responsible for anything negative? As it stands right now he is somehow simultaneously responsible for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. He's like the Schrodinger's cat of presidents. The only other people who behave like this are religious fundamentalists trying to simultaneously tell you what a great guy their god is while at the same time explaining away all the bad things that happen as either not his fault or your own fault.

When he actually does something negative. The economy is not tanking, much to the chagrin to the Republicans. They tried everything in their power to blame Obama, but it failed badly.

randomjsa:A bit like how Bush was somehow responsible for the tech bubble burst right at the end of the Clinton administration which was the primary force behind many job losses during his first term, but that didn't stop liberals from running ads blaming him for it in 2004 now did it?

At what point precisely is Obama responsible for anything negative? As it stands right now he is somehow simultaneously responsible for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything. He's like the Schrodinger's cat of presidents. The only other people who behave like this are religious fundamentalists trying to simultaneously tell you what a great guy their god is while at the same time explaining away all the bad things that happen as either not his fault or your own fault.

When the world stops deteriorating from Bushes incredibly incompetent policies.